0 Apologetic Issues in the Old Testament, Part 2

By: Dr.Richard S. Hess 

Distinguished Professor of Old Testament

Minimalists and the Old Testament

The issue of minimalism, or more accurately the question of the historical value of the Bible, has changed over the years in terms of the focus of ancient Israelite history. For example, in the mid-1970s the major concern was whether the patriarchs of Genesis 12–36 had any historical claim to its tradition.5 The critics questioned the application of parallels from cuneiform archives dating to the traditional date of the patriarchs, the early second millennium b.c. They argued that such parallels could be found in cuneiform texts from a thousand years later, that the style of “history writing” in Genesis did not predate the Greeks who wrote in the fifth century b.c. and later, and that other customs and materials in Genesis could best be dated to the first millennium b.c. This was countered by a series of studies that demonstrated that the quantity and quality of many parallels in the early second millennium b.c. appear only then outside the Bible, that narrative writing of events such as found in Genesis 12–36 was known in the patriarchs’ world of the second millennium b.c., and that many of the customs cited, including especially the personal names, are either exclusive to the early second millennium b.c., or match it in a statistically significant manner not found later.6

0 An Introduction to Christian Apologetics – 2

By: Dr.Paul Coulter

No one is converted through apologetics?

 

Acts 26:28

B] Objections from outside the Bible

1. Logic cannot tell us anything about God

This statement is self defeating since it relies on internal logic as the basis for its claim. Logic is simply the way in which we state facts and make claims. In this sense it is impossible to say anything at all about God or anything else without employing logic. As Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli write [6]:

Most people scorn or ignore apologetics because it seems very intellectual, abstract and rational. They contend that  life and love and morality and sanctity are much more important than reason. Those who reason this way are right; they just don’t notice that they are reasoning. We can’t avoid doing it, we can only avoid doing it well.

They explain the relationship between the language of logic and argument and the reality of the world we live in [7]:

We write in terms, propositions and arguments because we think in concepts, judgments and reasoning; and we do this because the reality we think about includes essences, facts and causes. Terms express concepts which express essences. Propositions express judgments which express facts. And arguments express reasoning which expresses causes, real ‘becauses’ and ‘whys’.

Since Christians believe in a God who speaks using human language we must be committed to the belief that language can describe reality in a way that is comprehensible. Although we do not claim we can know every truth about the causes, ‘becauses’ and ‘whys’ of the universe, we do believe that God has created us in His image as rational people who can comprehend those causes, ’becauses’ and ’whys’ that God has revealed to us through the ordering of nature, through His actions in history and through His words recorded in Scripture.